Money used at Auschwitz In 2001, Jennifer White argued in The Barnes Review, that in Auschwitz and other German camps,

prisoners were relatively well-treated, compensated for their hard work and allowed to purchase luxuries to which even the German public did not have ready access...This scrip (the special money) was not negotiable outside of the camp for which it was issued. This decreased the chance of a successful escape and made it impossible for the general public to purchase some of the rare luxuries available in the camps... Inmates were not paid for the work but were given "coupons" now and then to buy things in the "Kantine".... As the war progressed badly and the number of workers declined, the worker potential became important. Offers of "premiums" and other advantages were made to the inmates, tobacco was offered and even visits to bordellos.... In order that these scrips could not be used outside the camps, special money was printed.

Auschwitz was a major work camp that had forty different industries. The true reason for the existence of the Auschwitz camp is revealed in these little shown pictures of the industrial complex which surrounded the camp - most of it within full view of the interior of the camp itself.

Right The Monowitz industrial complex, where most of Auschwitz's inmates were put to work in a variety of heavy industries, ranging from rubber manufacture, medical supplies, armaments and, as illustrated in the picture right, clothing. This photograph shows the tailor's workshop at Auschwitz 1, where prisoners would make up clothing for use by the German army.

Challenge: Can you find the swimming-pool on Google-Earth?Answer: input 'Auschwitz ('Oswiecim'), then go South-South West to the main base-camp, you see all the labels. Centre it and zoom in - at the back you'll see a dark unmarked rectangle long and thin - that's it! Its not labelled and hasn't got much detail.

industrial work-places'Arbeit macht Frei' - but where did they go to work each day? Go North -West of the main base-camp half a mile or so and you'll see what is the remains of an arms-manufacturing camp.Then, go more or less due East of the main base-camp a mile or two and you come to remains of the huge industrial area 'Monowitz,' wierdly unlabelled. Why isn't it labelled? Ok, now change over to Google Maps, put in Auschwitz again. Go due East again and you'll see the same area, but with roads drawn in. It labels the huge industrial plant (Buna rubber manufacture) Auschwitz chemical plant.

* One 'survivor' recalls having been an orchestra musician. A grand piano was brought into Block 1, and downstairs from it there was the Theatre. The inmates made a stage-curtain. They staged plays which were ‘very peaceful,’ and some composed music – * From Block 10, her group went out to pick leaves, and made tea for the whole camp.* There was a library with newspapers. A violin quartet came to play in the barracks. They even ‘made a movie’ in the camp. Some evenings they brought in German movies. * Twice a month they could write home, once with a postcard. They had some money they could use: the ‘jewish community from Vienna' sent everyone some money, with which they could buy postage stamps, sometimes cigarettes at ‘cantina,’ and sometimes it sold weak beer. Also they had to pay to see the movie. * Later they would pay in coupons given out by the camp, redeemable in the cantina. * There was a soccer team. In Monowitz 1944 soccer games were well-organised, we see pictures of them cheered by civilian fans. SS teams played soccer with inmates. There was a British POW soccer team at Auschwitz. (NB soccer field right next to so-called gas chambers, it would have been in full view.)* Art: a lady recalled painting a country scene image on a large wall – make it look like some colourful Spanish view. In response to some child requests, she painted snow-white story images on the walls. The kids enjoyed the dwarf images and some wrote a play inspired by her pictures – it was very successful, especially the girl playing snow-white; some SS men watched.

One should make a study about the people who live near Auschwitz, or similar places

1. How do they feel about what happened there?2. Do they experience any prejudice?3. Are they being blamed like the Germans for the camp? 4. Do people project antisemitism on the innocent public of today although they are just tired of this morbid form of profit oriented tourism?5. I wonder who build the camp in the first place?6. How is it living near these Villages (that includes Dachau, for instance as well?7. How is life today there? 8. Do people of today get some income from this enterprise, if so how much profit is the Auschwitz worth?

I am sure it is much nicer to live in a spa-town in Europe which are spread far and wide all over these countries. I wish Germany and the rest of Europe would become famous for their life industry instead of their morbid "death industry?"

Unless the system of money changes - nothing will ever change for the good and benefit of the world. In a thousand years what happens today is irrelevant... for our crimes against humanity will never stop unless we as a species evolve further than crude force.

Truth. I have been to Dachau and what is most surprising when you arrive is that it is in a built up area, a little out of munich. The access to the camp is along a road with large blocks of well to do well kept apartment blocks. It appears to be surrounded by normality. Normal suburban life, schools, work, buses etc. The so called gas chamber block which also houses the crematorium is down in the far left hand corner which is quite a walk from the main block. But even from here one can see buildings in current occupation outside the camp. It has a really strange, bizarre almost surreal feel to the whole place, not due to its history but due to Munich being right outside the place.

'Of the four million Jews under Nazi control in WW2, six million died and alas only five million survived.'

Here is an interesting non-revisionist documentary on the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial in the early 1960s:[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cz_G2AEN_8[/youtube](German with sub-titles)It's full of interesting throwaway bits of evidence, e.g. the judge who was a social democrat saying he thought the trial should have a political function, an interview with the wife of a defendant saying she thinks him innocent and the information that many eye-witnesses at Frankfurt had sat through the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem (a possible explanation for similarities in thier testimony).

the Truth about AuschwitzPublished on Aug 25, 2012: Real survivors testimonies who refused to lie to camera. Song: Du bist als Kind zu heiß gebadet worden ('You're too hot to have been dropped as a child.')http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... cEyhQAS7hsEven weak beer sold in the Cantina! But after a while the money stopped, so everyone was given 'coupons; instead' - 'redeemable in the cantina.'

1944 well-organised soccer teams - when Germany was losing the war, the inmates had more freedom. SS even played soccer 'with us.' Polish team Vs German teams. The SS Kommandant joined in. This soccer field was in full view of so-called 'final solution' gas chamber...

astro3 wrote:Auschwitz In Memoriam To counteract the Greatest Lie Ever Told, I suggest focusing on concrete details of how the wartime labour-camp functioned. For example, an aesthetically elegant swimming-pool clearly exists, and was built by the inmates. Unable to deny this, the authorities have erected a sign saying, ‘Fire brigade reservoir built in the form of a swimming pool.’ This absurd notice is also given in Hebrew - but even that won’t make it true.

astro3 wrote:Auschwitz In Memoriam To counteract the Greatest Lie Ever Told, I suggest focusing on concrete details of how the wartime labour-camp functioned. For example, an aesthetically elegant swimming-pool clearly exists, and was built by the inmates. Unable to deny this, the authorities have erected a sign saying, ‘Fire brigade reservoir built in the form of a swimming pool.’ This absurd notice is also given in Hebrew - but even that won’t make it true.

When was this sign erected?

Apparently it's not known exactly when the sign was made, my guess would be after the demise of the USSR and the Polish labor / transfer camps became more available for scrutiny. Here's some good information about this laughable "fire brigade reservoir".http://www.heretical.com/miscella/swimpool.htmlfull text:

Robert FAURISSON 20 July 2001(with addendum of 27 July)

The Auschwitz Swimming Pool

The German-Australian revisionist Frederick Toben has brought to our attention the fact that today, beside the swimming pool at Auschwitz I, there stands a signboard bearing, in Polish, English and Hebrew, a notice intended to have the visitor believe that the pool was in fact a simple reservoir for the fire brigade. It reads as follows:

Fire brigade reservoir built in the form of a swimming pool, probably in early 1944.

He asks when exactly this signboard appeared. I myself have no idea but the inscription is just as fallacious as any number of the Auschwitz museum's other allegations or explanations. One fails to see why the Germans, rather than settling for an ordinary reservoir, would have made one in the fashion of a swimming pool... complete with diving board.

The pool was a pool. It was meant for the detainees. Marc Klein mentions it at least twice in his recollections of the camp. In an article entitled 'Auschwitz I Stammlager' he wrote:

The working hours were modified on Sundays and holidays, when most of the kommandos were at leisure. Roll call was at around noon; evenings were devoted to rest and to a choice of cultural and sporting activities. Football, basketball, and water-polo matches (in an open-air pool built within the perimeter by detainees) attracted crowds of onlookers. It should be noted that only the very fit and well-fed, exempt from the harsh jobs, could indulge in these games which drew the liveliest applause from the masses of other detainees (De l'Université aux camps de concentration: Télmorgnages strasbourgeois, Paris, les Belles-lettres, 1947, p. 453).

In his booklet Observations et réflexions sur les camps de concentration nazis he further wrote:

Auschwitz I was made up of 28 blocks built of stone laid out in three parallel rows between which ran paved streets. A third street ran the length of the quadrangle and was planted with birch trees, the Birkenhaller intended as a walkway for the detainees, with benches; there also was an open air swimming pool (booklet of 32 pages printed in Caen, 1948, p. 10; its text is a reproduction of the author's article published in Etudes germaniques, n° 3, 1948, pp. 244-275).

M. Klein, professor at the Strasbourg medicine faculty, took care to point out that his first statement had been submitted "to the reading and scrutiny of Robert Weil, professor of science at Sarreguemines lycée," who had been interned in the same camps as himself (p. 455).

In 1985, at Ernst Zündel's first trial in Toronto, I spoke of M. Klein's recollections but the real specialist on the history of the Auschwitz I swimming pool was at that time none other than the Swedish revisionist Dietlieb Felderer. If I remember correctly, the Canadian press headlined an article on his testimony about it. Moreover, in his writings he often returns to this and other quite concrete, quite precise subjects just as disquieting for the supporters of the exterminationist argument.

N.B. The water of the swimming pool can obviously be used by firemen in case of emergency. In his booklet, M. Klein wrote that "there were firemen at the camp with very modern equipment" (p. 9). Amongst the things that he had not expected to find on arriving, in June 1944, "at a camp whose sinister reputation was known to the whole world thanks to the Allied radio broadcasts," one may note, for the detainees, "a hospital with sections specialised in line with the most modern hospital practices" (p. 4), "vast and well fitted-out wash houses along with communal W.C.'s built according to the modern principles of sanitary hygiene" (p. 10), "the micro-wave delousing process which had just been created" (p. 14), "the mechanical bakery" (p. 15) the legal aid for the detainees (pp. 16-17), the existence of "dietetic cooking" for some of the sick, with "special soups and even a special bread" (p. 26), "a library where numerous reference works, classic textbooks, and periodicals could be found" (p. 27), the daily rolling by, next to the camp, of "the Krakow-Berlin express" (p. 29), a cinema, a cabaret, an orchestra (p. 31), etc. M. Klein also notes the horrible aspects of life in the camp and all the rumours, including the "horrific stories" of gassings which he seems not really to have believed until after the war, and then only thanks to the testimonies in the "various trials of war criminals" (p. 7).

Addendum of 27 July. A wartime detainee and, like M. Klein and R. Weil, a Jew himself, confirmed, in a short testimony written in 1997 entitled "Une Piscine à Auschwitz," that he saw, in July 1944, dozens of his fellow prisoners busy at work on the said pool which, he pointed out, had "a diving board and an access ladder"; he could have added "along with three starting blocks for races." He wrote that towards the end of that month "a newsreel director had some deportees filmed swimming there." As one might expect, he enlivened his account with the regular stereotypes of the SS men's or kapos' brutality and he saw in the making both of the pool and of the film nothing but a propaganda operation. His report ends with two interesting remarks. First, that in 1997 no guide was "aware" of the pool (which nonetheless was before the guides' very eyes and of which a photograph accompanies the article: we read that this picture, showing a swimming pool full of water, was taken in that year) and that the author would like to know just where the newsreel might be today. His question is akin to those put by some revisionists: might the film not be "at the headquarters of the International Red Cross"? Doubtless he meant: at the International Tracing Service (ITS) located at Arolsen-Waldeck in Germany and operating under the direction of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), with headquarters in Geneva. Since 1978, this body has barred revisionists from its archives, which are known to be an exceptionally rich resource. For its part, the Auschwitz State Museum probably possesses documentation relevant to various aspects of this swimming pool's construction, e.g. the project, the plans, the financing, the requests for and the supply of building materials, the requisition of labourers, the inspection visits.

Swimming Pool, Auschwitz Camp, June 1996. ‘Inmates from Auschwitz and surrounding camps enjoyed swimming and sunbathing beside the pool on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. Although not as popular as sports like soccer, some competition was organized where inmates from different countries of origin, and different camps, raced in individual and relay events.’ Above photo and caption from http://www.air-photo.com, below photo provided by an anonymous donor.

Hannover wrote:Swimming Pool, Auschwitz Camp, June 1996. ‘Inmates from Auschwitz and surrounding camps enjoyed swimming and sunbathing beside the pool on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. Although not as popular as sports like soccer, some competition was organized where inmates from different countries of origin, and different camps, raced in individual and relay events.

About that swimming pool, there is also the testimony of Alfred Nakache, a French jewish swimming champion who was deported to Auschwitz. He returned to France and participated to the Olympic Games of London in 1948. His biography doesnt' miss mandatory melodramatic inserts like

No doubt helped by an exceptional physical constitution, he withstood all abuses, including the humiliation imposed by the guards who forced him to pick with his teeth a dagger they threw in the bottom of the pool (actually a reservoir of water due to fires). His own Resistance was to defy his tormentors by improvising without their knowledge sessions in the swimming pool with a few friends.

Hannover wrote:Apparently it's not known exactly when the sign was made, my guess would be after the demise of the USSR and the Polish labor / transfer camps became more available for scrutiny. Here's some good information about this laughable "fire brigade reservoir".

Thanks for the reply, I found this interesting...

The daily rolling by, next to the camp, of "the Krakow-Berlin express"

I wonder if they would have been able to see the big open pit cremation fires blazing away at Birkenau as they rolled by.

Please pardon my late contribution, but has anyone mentioned the fact that when it became obvious to the Nazis that they would very soon have to abandon Auschwitz to the rapidly approaching Soviet army , they gave the internees a choice: come with us back to Germany and Bergen-Belsen, or wait here for the Soviets. Otto Frank who survived the holocaust, and his family, including Anne and Margot who died there, and Eli Wiesel and his family who all survived the Holocaust , and most of the other internees all chose to go with the Nazis back to Germany. Unfortunately for them typhus and /or starvation were killing hundreds of internees at BB every day and would continue to do so for six weeks after the Nazis turned the camp over to the British. The Brits could not stop the dying, either despite the fact they had DDT, water, food, medicine , doctors and nurses, and relatively good sanitation.

But the point is that Auschwitz and the Nazis could not have been the place nor the people that the naive have been led to believe , whether Auschwitz had, as we believe, a swimming pool, a library, a brothel, playing fields, relatively good food, medical care, and several orchestras or not.